Seattle Quadzilla Mini Race Report Summary

4 Marathons in 4 Days! My goal was to improve my overall time by about an hour. Last year, I ran these 4 races in 17:26:02. I had planned to run this year in 16:30:00 or less. Basically, I wanted to improve each of my road marathons to sub-4:00 and the trail marathon to sub 4:30.

My original goal was to run sub 4 hours, thereby improving my 2011 time by 8 minutes.

Wow! I came in 2nd place overall and set a new Marathon distance PR of 3:25:07. Besting my previous PR by almost 3 minutes. I felt great. It was an easy steady run. I even felt like I could have gone faster if I didn’t have to save a little for 3 more marathons and an Ironman next weekend. More details to come… but WOW!

Race 2 - Wishbone Run -Friday Nov. 23

My original goal was to run sub 4.5 hours, improving my 2011 time by 14 minutes.

Wow Again! I ran the race in 4:19:16, and I came in 3rd place overall!!! I beat my goal by over 10 minutes, and I improved my time from last year by over 25 minutes! This race was brutal. It was so wet, there were massive puddles that we 60 feet long and knee-deep. There was no way around them, you had to go through them. And this is some serious technical trail. It was rocky, muddy, slippery, winding trails, up and down hills. WOW!

I got a blister on this run, that didn’t seem that bad at the time. But the next two races… well… read on.

Race 3 - Ghost of Seattle - Saturday Nov. 24

My original goal was to run sub 4 hours, improving my 2011 time by 20 minutes.

This time, I felt great at the start, and was running on another PR pace for the first 19 miles. I started to fade a little bit, but I was able to rally, and thanks to the pacing of another Maniac who was doing the Quadzilla, I finished the last full mile at 7:25 pace and the last .22 miles at 6:33 pace. I came in with a finish time of 3:28:29, my 3rd best marathon time ever.

The blister from the day before burst on me, and so later that night I did my best to clean it, and tape it up. I had a hard time sleeping because it hurt so much. But after I took a couple Ibuprofen the pain went away and I was able to sleep well.

Race 4 - Seattle Marathon - Sunday Nov. 25

My original goal was to run sub 4 hours, improving my 2011 time by 13 minutes.

When I woke up. My blister actually felt pretty good. I was able to walk on it without much pain at all, just a sensation of it being there. And I was pretty certain running would be ok. My legs felt great, but I knew this course was much harder than the other two road marathons, so another shot at a PR was out of the question. But a course PR would mean running sub 3:43:30, and I felt pretty confident I could do that. So in the morning, I set that as my goal.

I lined up with the 3:35 pacer who was a fellow Marathon Maniac. When we started, I actually felt pretty strong, and running on the flats and uphills didn’t seem to bother my blister at all. I ended up dropping that pacer by mile 2 and I set out to run around a 7:45/mile pace. Other than down hills which bothered my blister, I was feeling really strong. By mile 13 I realized I was pace to set another PR! I event caught and passed the 3:25 pacer by mile 17.

I was running with another Maniac, who said we could break 3:25. But I knew I had some big challenges ahead. The hills start at 19 miles, and even though I felt strong enough to run up those hills at a good pace, I knew that running down hill, which would normally be bonus free speed was going to KILL MY FOOT.

I ended up not being able to run “fast” downhill. I so by about mile 21 my Maniac friend dropped me, and by mile 23 the 3:25 pacer passed me. I thought I might still have a shot at 3:28, and so I gave it my all for the last couple miles. In the end I finished in 3:28:58 which was almost 15 minutes faster than my course PR.

All in all, I can’t complain. Now I have to try to speed “heal” my heel before next Saturday when I have an Ironman!!!

This is my fitness blog. Some people who knew me a long time ago may wonder, what the heck I'm doing writing a blog about fitness. Many of them wouldn't imagine that I'd have anything to do with fitness. You see, up until age 34, I treated my body very poorly. I sat around at home, at work, at play. I ate junk food and lots of it. And the result was what you'd expect 5'4" and 200 lbs with 36% body fat. (more...)

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